Message from the Director Archives
Spring 2011
Dear Friends of the Center for Latin American Studies,
As the 2010-11 academic year comes to an end, it is time to share with you a summary of the work that we have done at the Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS) since my arrival as Director in the fall of 2010.
The Center has a brand new team: Israel Alonso (Associate Director), Jordan Adams (Outreach Coordinator), and Patricia Peña (Administrative Assistant). The composition of our team is a reflection of the diversity of Miami: Argentina, Dominican Republic, Mexico, and California! I am thrilled to be working with this wonderful group of young, energetic and creative people. I would also like to thank our Director of Degree Programs, Professor Sallie Hughes, for her energy and dedication.
One of our first goals was to increase the visibility and engagement of the Center within the University of Miami and beyond. We expanded our commitment to promote events contributing to enrich the intellectual life of the university and bring cutting edge research and debates to our campus. Compared to the previous academic year, events sponsored or co-sponsored by CLAS increased 40 percent and the number of speakers and attendees increased 180 and 230 percent, respectively. These events convened more than 2,800 participants. Figures, of course, do not fully convey the richness of activities that involved faculty, students, journalists, activists, policymakers, diplomats, members of the Greater Miami community, and many others from the United States, Latin America, the Caribbean, and other regions. These conferences, lectures, workshops, seminars, film series, panel discussions, and other events covered a wide range of themes, including Haiti’s Housing Crisis, Bolivia’s democratic challenges, and Brazil’s role as a global player.
The Center has established several partnerships to advance research, training, and outreach. Examples include collaboration with other UM centers (Center for Hemispheric Policy, Center for the Humanities, and UM CIBER) on a variety of public events; a new track in the Latin American Studies MA for the study of geo-spatial analysis, digital cartography, and geographic information systems (GIS) with the Department of Geography; cooperation with the Miller School of Medicine’s Masters in Public Health to offer a summer field methods course in Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands; a Center-sponsored report on community redevelopment in Haiti in collaboration with the Schools of Architecture and Engineering; and a project with UM’s Launch Pad to promote a network of young entrepreneurs in the Americas. We have partnered with the Cuban Heritage Collection to redesign and grow the program supported by the Goizueta Foundation to advance undergraduate research on Cuba and its diaspora.
We have also been busy expanding our cooperation with partners in Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, Asia, South Florida and the rest of the United States. These collaborations show our commitment to create a Center that contributes to strengthen UM’s comparative advantage: its comprehensive knowledge on and engagement with Latin America and the Caribbean. While we remain deeply committed to promote the humanities and social sciences, we are eager to develop synergies in areas such as health, technology and the natural sciences to increase the knowledge base of our students on the Latin American and Caribbean region and foster national and international linkages to create pre-professional experiences, research opportunities, and academic exchanges.
The following examples illustrate our work in this area. We are working with the prestigious Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute to develop a study abroad program in Panama focused on science and technology, innovation and green entrepreneurship; as part of a South Florida delegation, we held several meetings with the President of the Dominican Republic, his Cabinet and Dominican entrepreneurs to discuss the development of the Dominican high-tech industry based on Technology and Life Sciences hubs in South Florida; we have partnered with Haiti’s Interuniversity Institute for Research and Development (INURED), Oxford University and George Washington University to launch an ambitious research project on the contributions and impacts of diasporas on capacity building in the homeland; we are deepening a partnership with the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) at Vanderbilt University, the only survey of democratic public opinion and behavior that covers the entire Americas; and in collaboration with the Spanish Cultural Center in Miami, we are organizing a major international event on corporate social responsibility in the cultural sector for the fall of 2011. Our ties extend to other continents as well. We co-sponsored a forum on Cultural Industries in the United States and Spain with the Santillana and Alternativas Foundations in Madrid, which received vast media coverage, and we are planning a major conference on China-Latin America in Miami for the spring of 2012.
The “Miami Consortium for Latin American and Caribbean Studies,” our partnership with the Latin American and Caribbean Center (LACC) at Florida International University (FIU), has become a central component of our development strategy. Specific activities included joint conferences, seminars and roundtable series (such as our popular series on presidential elections), cross-campus Interdisciplinary Research Groups, a Distinguished Speakers Series, a common database that tracks and supports faculty production, outreach impact and interdisciplinary research, a course registration system that enables graduate students from both universities to take courses at the partner institution, development of Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) courses across the university, the expansion of curricular offerings in Haitian Creole and Portuguese (CLAS partnered up with the Department of Modern Languages and Literature to institutionalize the study of Haitian Creole, as a permanent part of UM’s curriculum), and joint training and curriculum development projects with public school teachers and faculty from other post-secondary institutions. The Miami Consortium co-sponsored a conference on the Bolivarian Alternative for the People of Our America (ALBA) at UM, which assembled some of the best experts in the hemisphere. A widely attended gathering held at the Coral Gables Museum celebrated the official launch of the Miami Consortium. The presence of both UM and FIU Presidents at the event underscored the commitment to position our universities at the center of a dynamic exchange that connects Latin America and the Caribbean with the United States and the rest of the world. Thanks to the Title VI grant from the U.S. Department of Education, CLAS has significantly expanded its support for faculty in the form of funding for travel and course development.
The service of UM faculty in Center’s activities has been extraordinary. We ran seven selection committees and three committees involved in reviewing curricular programs, course offerings, and consortium goals. Faculty from five different schools and six departments in the College of Arts and Sciences generously gave their time to read proposals, dissertations, applications, and syllabi.
Our undergraduate students launched a new student-run organization, which sponsored a highly successful event with a grassroots organizer from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and walking tours of ethnic communities in Miami. Seeking to establish new ties to departments in the College of Arts and Sciences, CLAS created a program of Distinguished Fellowships for doctoral students. One of the goals of the program is to work with departments to recruit top applicants in the field of Latin America and the Caribbean. CLAS is also working with graduate students to respond to a demand for more intellectual and social interaction among those interested in Latin America and the Caribbean at UM.
As you know, the degree programs in Latin American Studies became part of CLAS as of this past academic year. We have been working to restructure our Masters degree as a highly competitive, one-year program with a focus on professional tracks including innovation and sustainable development, security studies, creative industries, global interactions, and GIS technologies. We are delighted that the number of MA students to enter next year will double. Among other initiatives to improve our academic programs, we piloted an exit survey for students, started to systematically collect alumni information, and began classifying internship data. One indicator of the quality of degree programs is the career path of graduates. Among the exceptional graduating LAS students this school year, we are pleased to have a Fulbright grant recipient, a UM Outstanding Senior Award recipient, and a Teach for America core member. Our students wrote theses on such relevant topics as health care and public policy, microfinance, and community water management.
We at CLAS remain keen to welcome your input and involve you in our efforts to advance the study of Latin America and the Caribbean at UM and beyond. We are dedicated to build a Center based on the principles of academic excellence, open dialogue, and two-way engagement designed to improve the lives of people throughout the hemisphere.
I am committed to develop a culture of intense interaction, collaboration, and an ethic of collective effort to continuously raise standards and improve the way we work together.
I wish you a restful summer and look forward to seeing you in the fall!
Saludos cordiales,
Ariel C. Armony
Director, Center for Latin American Studies
Weeks Professor in Latin American Studies
Professor of International Studies